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ArangoDB on Raspberry PI

During the ArangoDB Hackathon weekend, we tried to compile ArangoDB on a Raspberry PI using Raspbian as operating system.

ArangoDB needs some external libraries in order to compile

  • libev
  • ICU
  • V8
  • zlib

Libev, ICU and zlib compiled without problems. Raspbian comes with a precompiled version of V8 – but it’s too old for ArangoDB. So, we had to compile V8 ourself. A single make run takes hours and hours to complete. Using the default parameters it complains about wrong flags for the hard-float ABI. After some googling and endless hours of waiting for the compile to complete, we found a set of flags that finally worked.

  • you need to pass the options -march=armv6 to the compiler and linker
  • you need to disable CAN_USE_VFP3_INSTRUCTIONS
  • use -O2 instead of -O3 (I’m not sure if this is necessary or not)


If you downloaded ArangoDB 1.3, use the following diff to patch the Google V8 Makesystem

index 3a59639..7bb9cab 100644
--- a/3rdParty/V8/build/common.gypi
+++ b/3rdParty/V8/build/common.gypi
@@ -146,6 +146,14 @@
               'CAN_USE_ARMV7_INSTRUCTIONS=1',
             ],
           }],
+          ['armv7==0', {
+            'target_conditions': [
+              ['_toolset=="target"', {
+                'cflags': ['-march=armv6',],
+                'ldflags': ['-march=armv6',],
+              }],
+            ],
+          }],
           [ 'v8_can_use_unaligned_accesses=="true"', {
             'defines': [
               'CAN_USE_UNALIGNED_ACCESSES=1',
@@ -167,7 +175,7 @@
           [ 'v8_can_use_vfp3_instructions=="true" or arm_neon==1 or \
              arm_fpu=="vfpv3" or arm_fpu=="vfpv3-d16"', {
             'defines': [
-              'CAN_USE_VFP3_INSTRUCTIONS',
+              # 'CAN_USE_VFP3_INSTRUCTIONS',
             ],
           }],
           [ 'v8_use_arm_eabi_hardfloat=="true"', {
@@ -414,13 +422,13 @@
           ['OS=="linux" or OS=="freebsd" or OS=="openbsd" or OS=="netbsd" \
             or OS=="android"', {
             'cflags!': [
-              '-O2',
+              '-O3',
               '-Os',
             ],
             'cflags': [
               '-fdata-sections',
               '-ffunction-sections',
-              '-O3',
+              '-O2',
             ],
             'conditions': [
               [ 'gcc_version==44 and clang==0', {

Switch into the 3rdParty/V8 directory and execute

GYP_DEFINES="armv7=0" make library=static strictaliasing=off snapshot=off werror=no hardfp=on arm.release

This will produce the libraries and the shell example. Try the shell to verify that everything worked

pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB/3rdParty/V8 $ ./out/arm.release/shell 
V8 version 3.16.14.1 [sample shell]
>

The ArangoDB Makefile does not know about ARM, so we need to fake it. Go into the out directory and execute

pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB/3rdParty/V8 $ cd out
pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB/3rdParty/V8/out $ ln -s arm.release ia32.release

There is one open problem: atomic compare and swap. It is currently not used in the production code of 1.3 AFAIK, so I’ve commented it out.

index 498bf70..1a45887 100644
--- a/lib/BasicsC/locks-posix.c
+++ b/lib/BasicsC/locks-posix.c
@@ -592,7 +592,8 @@ bool TRI_CompareAndSwapIntegerInt64 (volatile int64_t* theValue, int64_t oldValu
   #if __ENVIRONMENT_MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED__ >= 1050
     return OSAtomicCompareAndSwap64(oldValue, newValue, theValue);
   #elif (__GNUC__ * 10000 + __GNUC_MINOR__ * 100 + __GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__) > 40100
-    return __sync_val_compare_and_swap(theValue, oldValue, newValue);
+    // FIXME return __sync_val_compare_and_swap(theValue, oldValue, newValue);
+    return 0;
   #else
     #error No TRI_CompareAndSwapIntegerInt64 implementation defined
   #endif
@@ -602,7 +603,8 @@ bool TRI_CompareAndSwapIntegerUInt64 (volatile uint64_t* theValue, uint64_t oldV
   #if __ENVIRONMENT_MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED__ >= 1050
     return OSAtomicCompareAndSwap64((int64_t)(oldValue), (int64_t)(newValue), (volatile int64_t*)(theValue));
   #elif (__GNUC__ * 10000 + __GNUC_MINOR__ * 100 + __GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__) > 40100
-    return __sync_val_compare_and_swap(theValue, oldValue, newValue);
+    // FIXME return __sync_val_compare_and_swap(theValue, oldValue, newValue);
+    return 0;
   #else
     #error No TRI_CompareAndSwapIntegerUInt64 implementation defined
   #endif

Now we are ready to compile:

pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ touch .v8-build-32 
pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ ./configure --enable-all-in-one-icu --enable-all-in-one-v8 CPPFLAGS="-DUSE_EABI_HARDFLOAT -march=armv6 -mfloat-abi=hard"
pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ make

This produced executables. Start the server

pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ mkdir /tmp/testbase
pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ ./bin/arangod -c etc/relative/arangod.conf /tmp/testbase
2013-07-29T09:41:42Z [28103] INFO ArangoDB 1.3.1 -- ICU 49.1.2, V8 version 3.16.14.1, SSL engine OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013
2013-07-29T09:41:42Z [28103] INFO using default language 'en'
2013-07-29T09:41:42Z [28103] INFO using endpoint 'tcp://localhost:8529' for http non-encrypted requests
2013-07-29T09:41:42Z [28103] INFO JavaScript using startup './js', modules './js/server/modules;./js/common/modules;./js/node', packages './js/npm', actions './js/actions', application './js/apps'
2013-07-29T09:41:53Z [28103] INFO Authentication is turned off
2013-07-29T09:41:54Z [28103] INFO ArangoDB (version 1.3.1) is ready for business. Have fun!

Next start the shell

pi@raspberrypi ~/ArangoDB $ ./bin/arangosh -c etc/relative/arangosh.conf 
Please specify a password: 

                                       _     
  __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __   __ _  ___  ___| |__  
 / _` | '__/ _` | '_ \ / _` |/ _ \/ __| '_ \ 
| (_| | | | (_| | | | | (_| | (_) \__ \ | | |
 \__,_|_|  \__,_|_| |_|\__, |\___/|___/_| |_|
                       |___/                 

Welcome to arangosh 1.3.1. Copyright (c) triAGENS GmbH
Using Google V8 3.16.14 JavaScript engine, READLINE 6.2, ICU 49.1.2

Connected to ArangoDB 'tcp://127.0.0.1:8529' version 1.3.1

------------------------------------- Help -------------------------------------
Predefined objects:                                                 
  arango:                                ArangoConnection           
  db:                                    ArangoDatabase             
Example:                                                            
 > db._collections();                    list all collections       
 > db.<coll_name>.all().toArray();       list all documents         
 > id = db.<coll_name>.save({ ... });    save a document            
 > db.<coll_name>.remove(<_id>);         delete a document          
 > db.<coll_name>.document(<_id>);       get a document             
 > db.<coll_name>.replace(<_id>, {...}); overwrite a document       
 > db.<coll_name>.update(<_id>, {...});  partially update a document
 > help                                  show help pages            
 > exit                                                             
Note: collection names may be cached in arangosh. To refresh them, issue: 
 > db._collections();

And enjoy! I’ve not done many tests, actually only one: save and restore documents. So, I’ve no idea how stable it is.

Frank Celler

Frank Celler

Frank is both entrepreneur and backend developer, developing mostly memory databases for two decades. He is the CTO and co-founder of ArangoDB. Try to challenge Frank asking him questions on C, C++ and MRuby. Besides Frank organizes Cologne’s NoSQL group & is an active member of NoSQL community.

8 Comments

  1. Michael Bruyninckx on October 10, 2013 at 7:07 am

    Hello,
    It would be very helpfull if you could detail the steps in a more tutorial way kind of, like type sudo apt-get somelibrary, then type wget http://www.where.google.hides.his.v8 , etc
    I’m looking to use ArangoDB on small mostly single user Node.JS applications that I want to run on the Raspberry Pi.

    • fceller on October 10, 2013 at 12:44 pm

      1.4.0-beta2 will be released in the next days. I will try to produce a more detail tutorial with the new version.

      • Michael Bruyninckx on November 5, 2013 at 12:33 pm

        I saw that 1.4 is now released, is this story (now apparently edited) still true ?

        it would be awesome to just “apt-get” the binaries for the Raspberry Pi, but I guess this is possible to do too… it’s more verbose than before, so I guess it might work.
        I’ll try tomorrownight…

        • fceller on November 5, 2013 at 3:16 pm

          In order to get it up and running, you now can do

          git clone

          configure
          make install

          I also manage to create a deb package, which installs. But there is a bug in the setup script – I assume. I’m still debugging.

          • Michael Bruyninckx on November 5, 2013 at 3:42 pm

            SUPER !
            Danke schoen !



  2. Sorin on January 12, 2020 at 11:59 pm

    Hello,
    I am wondering if you or anybody else tried to compile the last version (3.6.0) on the new Raspberry Pi 4 which provides better hardware. I would like to try to run a small ArangoDB cluster on 3 or more Raspberry Pi 4 for testing and development. Any help or suggestion is highly appreciated.
    Thank you.

    • Jan Stücke on January 20, 2020 at 6:25 pm

      Hi there,

      we do not support ARM with ArangoDB. We would love to but just don’t have the resources to design, test and maintain a package for ARM atm. Maybe there is some community effort to get this rollin but the internal team does not have plans for a package for the near future.

  3. omert08 on June 9, 2020 at 6:05 pm

    I have compiled arangodb for ARM64V8 architectures, people can run arm version of arangodb by using this docker image. Note: It doesnt support official endpoint yet.

    Command: docker run -p 8529:8529 omert08/arangodb-arm64:3.4.10

    Github: https://github.com/omert08/arangodb-arm64
    Docker Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/omert08/arangodb-arm64

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